


Trapped

by Kate_Shepard



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst with a Happy Ending, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, First Contact War, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-20
Updated: 2016-10-20
Packaged: 2018-08-23 15:16:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 21,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8332495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kate_Shepard/pseuds/Kate_Shepard
Summary: The First Contact War has gone on for decades. A young Shepard faces off with pre-Spectre Nihlus Kryik. When they find themselves in a situation where they must work together to escape, they learn that they aren't so different after all.





	1. Chapter 1

That damn turian was going to be the death of her. Staff Lieutenant Shepard ducked behind a rock as the turret’s slugs tore into it. A glance to her right showed the drone approaching with its goddamn rockets. That meant he would be coming up from her left. He had her in a pincer with nowhere to go. She could overload his drone but she couldn’t get out from behind the rock until she’d dealt with the turret and he would be on her as soon as it stopped. She had seconds to figure out which was the most immediate threat. She decided that her shields and barrier could withstand turret fire better than a rocket blast so she sent an overload at the drone, causing it to blink out. Her omni-tool recharged—thanks to Wiggins for showing her how to overclock it and perform an overload—and she sent another above her head at the turret. It paused for long enough for her to blast it with her shotgun. 

It was all the time the turian needed. She felt something slam into her back and her shields flickered. The report of a rifle followed and she spun around to face him. Her amp was good to go so she threw caution to the wind and charged him, hoping the element of surprise would give her enough time to act. Time seemed to slow around her as she came out of the charge and she discharged her shotgun into his face before slamming her fist onto the ground and releasing her barriers in a nova. It threw him back far enough for her to turn and run. He fired after her and then gave chase once more. 

Turians were much, much faster than humans and he’d kept her on the run for two solid days so she was exhausted. He knew her secret now, though, so she used her charge to move her further from him whenever her biotic amps recharged enough to allow it. At this rate, she was going to fry them before she got away from him and then what would she do? He had almost two feet on her and was one of the most densely-muscled turians she’d come across. She was just lucky that he wasn’t a sniper or she’d be dead already, charge or no. 

A cluster of abandoned buildings ahead caught her attention. It was the old garrison from the time before the Alliance had moved its operations belowground into bunkers and fallout shelters. The garrison was used occasionally for photo shoots and news vids because it was considered a subprime target by the turians. As far as she knew, no one was scheduled to be in this sector today so she wouldn’t be drawing him into an area with civilians to use as hostages and she knew the layout so she could lose him there. 

She called on her last reserves of energy as she bolted for the complex. She would save her charge to get further from him in the labyrinthine maze of buildings. He had to be just as tired as she but he didn’t seem to be slowing at all and, while she could hear her own breath dragging into her overtaxed lungs, he still sounded like he was breathing easily. She’d heard the damn birds had lung tissue in their bones. It must be true because he wasn’t even panting. Walls closed in on either side of her as she made it into the compound and she threw herself around corners with little more than the hope that she didn’t run into someone who wasn’t supposed to be here and the need to escape the apex predator pursuing her. She hated him simply for making her feel like prey, a rabbit being chased by a raptor. Well, this rabbit had teeth and she wouldn’t run forever. She just had to find the right place where she could get to cover while he was exposed. The mess hall! Tables wouldn’t do much for him while she could take cover in the kitchen. She wished for a rocket launcher but supposed her shotgun would have to do. She just had to get through his shields. 

___

Nihlus pursued the human through the corridors created by the buildings of the abandoned compound. The place had been shelled multiple times and most of the buildings were crumbling. The human—he thought it was female from its size, the shape of its armor, and the long fur on its head that the males didn’t seem to have—leaped over piles of rubble with the grace of a _capria_. He didn’t underestimate her simply because she was female. Male turians tended to seek out combat roles more often than females, something they seemed to share with humans, but the female soldiers he’d known were some of the most vicious fighters the Hierarchy had. He couldn’t afford to think any differently of the humans. She’d shown surprising strength and resilience in managing to evade him for so long. This was the closest he’d gotten to her yet and she was tired. He intended to press his advantage. 

He stayed close to her as she darted around a corner but when he rounded it behind her, he saw that she’d used the biotic charge that had surprised him enough to let her get away earlier to put more distance between them. She rounded another corner and he put on another burst of speed. If she managed to get around a corner without him seeing, he would be hard-pressed to find her again. He would rather not be forced to revert to sniffing her out like a varren. It offended his sensibilities to do something that primitive. He’d fought hard to get away from his mercenary Invictus background and to fit in with colonial turians. He hadn’t managed to do so yet but he still shunned any hint of his upbringing. He wasn’t an animal, after all. 

He caught a glimpse of her as she darted between another set of buildings and bolted after her. The buildings were smaller and closer in here and that meant that her turns were coming more rapidly and her charge could take her from one intersection to the next in a blink. He’d seen a lot of biotic abilities but hers was new to him. She seemed too small and lean to be a vanguard but given her biotic attacks, her grip on that shotgun she’d fired in his face—and thank the spirits his shields had been fully charged—and the lack of the tech armor their sentinels favored, she had to be even if she did use some tech attacks. That explained her willingness to get in close. 

He’d been surprised when she’d turned and attacked but he supposed even a _raedan_ would turn and fight if cornered and she certainly wasn’t prey even if she was currently on the run. She knew that she couldn’t take him one-on-one in the open so she’d attempted evasion but it wasn’t a panicked escape. She was using her brain, thinking tactically, and utilizing the resources at her disposal with a cleverness that told him she was smart and still calm. The look in her eyes when she’d turned on him hadn’t been wide with fear. They’d been determined, angry, and surprisingly predatory. She was fierce, this little human. 

He turned a corner beside a long concrete block building in time to see the door bang closed. He supposed she could have opened it as she ran by but she hadn’t seemed to pay any attention to them before and the building was large enough that she might think she had a chance of hiding. Hiding from a turian was easier said than done but she may not know that. He slowed and put an ear to the door, listening for any sounds that would indicate her presence. Faintly, he heard another door close and he nodded to himself. She was inside. He cautiously opened the door, listening for any hint of a squeak or scrape that might give him away, and slipped inside, letting it ease shut behind him. The building was dark but his eyes easily picked up what light was available. He had excellent night vision. It would give him an advantage over her if the rest of the building was similarly dimmed. 

He was in a small alcove leading off of a short hallway. At the end was the door he assumed he’d heard. He approached it and listened once more. She wasn’t an engineer, so he probably didn’t have to worry about turrets or drones waiting for him. She could be waiting to biotically charge him but his shields were boosted. If she’d had grenades, she probably would have used them by now. He smelled the faint scent of old levo food that had seeped into walls over a span of decades and guessed that he was in a mess hall. That meant knives, heavy pans, and possibly equipment she could rig to explode. He decided not to give her time to do the latter and called up another drone as he slipped through the door and into the cafeteria. 

The scent of food lingered cloyingly in here—levo foods always smelled wrong to him—but it was one of the few remnants of the building’s original purpose. There were a couple of tables toward the front of the room that he assumed were for the few people that came here. The kitchen would probably be at least minimally stocked. He guessed that was where she would go as it would provide more cover. The front of the room had two open doorways with no doors, beside one of which was a large, open window. Inside that room appeared to be a station to clean dishes. It looked small and he doubted she would go there. That meant the other doorway was probably the entry to the kitchen itself. 

He sent his drone out ahead. If she overloaded it, he would know she was there. If it found her, it would buy him time to get into position. Either way, her position wouldn’t remain hidden for long. He waited, using the wall for cover, while the drone scanned the room. He heard the pop of an overload as his omni-tool flashed, letting him know the drone had been disabled. She was in there. He just had to find her. The good news was that there was enough in the way that her charge likely wouldn’t work. 

He eased into the room, dipping down and using the counters for cover as he was sure she was also doing, and began to hunt. His ears strained for the sound of a boot on concrete or the whisper of breath that would help him pinpoint her and, somewhat reluctantly, he sniffed the air and was just glad there was no one else around to see him do it. She was in the northwest corner. He sidled around a large silver machine he didn’t recognize and began his approach. He realized his mistake an instant too late when an overload dropped his shields as shockwave reverberated through the air and tore through him. The passageway he was in was too narrow for him to roll out of the way and he saw a shimmer of blue before she slammed into him and fired her shotgun. He was able to move quickly enough that the blast caught him in the shoulder rather than the face as she’d intended but the nova she sent rippling out from her feet knocked him back into the metal machine and he felt one of the spines of his fringe crack. Damn, that hurt! He fired reflexively but she hadn’t discharged her entire barrier and she kept coming. 

He sabotaged her gun and rolled out of the way of her successive shockwave before sending a plasma ball around the corner. He heard her grunt as it hit and stood to fire on her again. Her barrier fell and she ducked behind another counter. He called up another drone but she took it out almost as quickly as it appeared. He crouched behind the machine and probed at his fringe. It was fractured but not entirely broken and was merely sore to the touch. The gunshot wound to his shoulder would become severe if he couldn’t get somewhere to patch it up fairly soon but for now it just made moving painful. The shockwave had hurt but his armor had absorbed most of it and he was merely sore rather than wounded from it. He could still fight but he needed to finish her off and get back to base soon before he lost too much blood. His first aid kit was almost depleted. 

He deployed another drone and took advantage of the instant of distraction required to overload it and snuck around behind her. She saw his reflection in the mirrored surface of what he thought was a type of stove and whipped around. Her hand glowed blue as she raised the shotgun and then the building gave a violent shake and the ceiling began to crumble around them. He threw himself to the ground with his arms over his head and saw her do the same. Confusion shot through him. That didn’t sound like a turian bombardment. Were the humans shelling their own base? Why? He decided it didn’t matter. He just had to survive it so that he could kill her and get the hell out of here.


	2. Chapter 2

Shepard peeked out between her arms to make sure the turian hadn’t moved. There was a growing puddle of alien blue blood beneath him and she hoped that he might just bleed out and save her the trouble of more fighting. She was exhausted and was pretty sure her amps were almost fried. She could feel heat at the base of her skull when she used her biotics the last time and that was never a good sign. Her tech attacks were limited to overloads. She’d be left with nothing but weapons and the ability to take down his drones if she lost her amps. 

The building continued to collapse around them in a series of crashes that made her ears ring and puffs of dust that made her eyes water and breathing seem a bit hazardous. Not breathing was far more dangerous, though, so she tucked her face down into the pocket of her arms and tried to keep the worst of the debris out of her lungs. The cafeteria area of the mess hall sounded like it had completely collapsed and sections of the roof were going in the kitchen. She hoped that it didn’t come down on top of her. Why had the damn turians picked now to fire on a worthless target? It was very inconvenient. 

By the time the dust settled, the room was completely black without even the little bit of light that had come through the dingy windows. She activated the light on her shotgun and checked the turian first. A block had come down and seemingly hit him in the head. He looked unconscious. She hoped he was dead. She shined her light around the room and discovered that they were effectively caved in. The section of roof above them had come down at a slight angle onto the rubble that had piled up around them and she examined it as carefully as she could for any cracks, instabilities, or structural weaknesses that might bring it down on top of her. Fortunately, it looked stable for now. Unfortunately, that meant that getting out was going to mean digging through the remains of the cafeteria. Moving anything in here could cause it to shift and come down. 

She cautiously approached the turian and upon ensuring that he was, indeed, unconscious rather than dead, snatched his rifle away along with the pistol on his hip and the shotgun on his back. His omni-tool chip was next and she put that in a compartment of her armor. The Alliance would be grateful for any intel that could be gotten from it and it would keep him from calling out for help. She tossed the weapons out of the way and took a pair of cable ties from another compartment on her armor and used them to secure his hands behind his back and his feet together. She’d find a cord or rope or something later and attach his feet to his hands so that he couldn’t hobble away. Of course, right now, he was as trapped as she. When he was secured, she went to examine the dining area. 

She returned to the kitchen with her shoulders slumped and sank down onto the floor with her back against a cabinet. Digging out of the cafeteria was going to be easier said than done, especially on her own. She could use her biotics to lift pieces of the rubble out of the way once she got them loose but they were tightly packed enough that she didn’t know if she was strong enough to do it without help and her biotics weren’t going to be useful for much longer if she didn’t give her amps a break. She called up her omni-tool and attempted to send a message but the comm tower in the area must have been down again because it didn’t work. This wasn’t good. She was trapped in a crumbling building with one of the strongest turians she’d ever seen, no one knew she was here, the turians were bombing the area, and she didn’t know how she was going to get out. This was going to put every bit of her N7 training to the test. Fortunately, she had access to at least some food as there would be rations at the very least for the people who traveled here and to running water, which she ascertained by turning on the tap. It would give her a few days. 

The turian groaned and she looked at him again. He was big and she knew he was strong. The birds had talons on their hands and feet. They could lift a lot. She’d heard of enemy combatants teaming up to survive a situation such as this and then going on the offensive again once they were free. She wondered if the turians had any similar stories and if she could convince him that they both had a better chance of getting out together than they did alone. The turians themselves seemed to be communal. He was the first she’d seen working alone. She might be able to convince another one but if this one was a rare loner, it might be more difficult. Of course, she was a bit of a loner herself, so maybe he’d see it her way after all. 

He groaned again and rolled his head to the side. She saw him testing his bonds and watched as his talons skittered across the cable ties. He could try all he wanted. Those had been developed for just that purpose and were resistant to talons. They had to be melted off with a special tool she carried with her. That was going to be another problem. He might agree to help her but she had no way of knowing he wouldn’t turn on her the moment he was released from his bonds. She would have to be careful. She was also going to have to treat his injuries if she wanted to put him to work. 

“I know you’re awake,” she said in the alien language the Alliance had been able to decipher and teach to some of its operatives. It wasn't the common turian dialect but the translators the birds carried all contained software for it. Humans couldn't replicate the sounds in their primary language but they could the other. His head shot up and his eyes widened in what must be a universal expression of surprise. He understood her and hadn’t expected to. “The building caved in on us,” she told him. “We’re trapped. The way I see it, we have two options. I can shoot you and be done with it or we can call a temporary truce and work together to get out of here.” 

“Live to fight another day?” he asked in a rumbling, dual-toned voice that was not at all unpleasant. She’d never heard a turian speak in a language she could understand. Theirs sounded like a combination of bird-like chirps and big cat rumbles. 

“That’s the idea,” she said. “Help me and maybe we both live to kill each other later or I kill you now. You put up a good fight. It kind of feels like cheating to take you out this way but I’ll do it if it gives me a better chance to survive.” 

“It seems like I’d be a fool to say no,” he said. “How do I know you won’t just use me to get free and then kill me anyway?” 

“I could ask the same of you,” she said. “You could slit my throat with your talons the minute your hands are free. You may not have noticed but you’re bigger than me. I’m strong but you’ve got a hundred pounds and a couple of feet on me.” 

He thought about it for a moment and then said, “I give you my word that if you release me, I will not try to kill you until we are both free of this place and on equal footing again.” 

She cocked her head and said, “What’s a turian’s word worth?” 

“Everything,” he said. “We don’t lie.” 

Something about the steady way his bright green eyes held hers made her think that she could believe him. She nodded slowly and said, “All right. But if you betray me, dishonor on your whole family, dishonor on you, dishonor on your cow and all that.”* His laugh took her off guard. At least, she thought the deep, rolling rumble coming from his chest was a laugh. She cocked an eyebrow. “What? You don’t have honor?” 

“ _I_ have honor,” he said. “My family? Not so much. I get the point, though. Look, lying in my culture is considered a major wrong. We just don’t do it. We might prevaricate or dance around the truth but even a murderer who gets caught will generally confess rather than lie about his crime. I said I won’t kill you until we’re on equal footing. I meant it.” 

“What do you call equal footing?” she asked. 

“You sound like an advocate,” he told her and huffed out a sigh. “We’re both out of here with weapons in hand, in similar states of health, and facing each other. I won’t shoot you in the back or take you by surprise. Good enough?” 

“Okay,” she said. She was still cautious as she drew the clippers out of her armor and moved beside him. He remained still as she melted the cords binding his hands and feet and she moved quickly out of his reach. He slowly flexed his hands, presumably to restore circulation, and then pushed himself to a sitting position and rolled his shoulders. She saw him wince and remembered his injury. Blue blood was still dripping down the front of his black and red armor. She was going to need to do something about that if she expected him to be able to help her dig. “I have medigel,” she said. 

“What is medigel?” he asked. 

Sometimes she forgot that not everyone knew what medigel was. “Only the best thing since sliced bread. Wait. You don’t eat our food. The greatest invention since space flight. I, uh, think it’ll work on you.” 

"Show me," he said, still looking at her warily. 

She supposed she could understand wanting proof that she wasn't trying to poison him. She didn't know if she'd accept medical treatment from him without proof that it was at least safe for him. She wasn't injured enough to justify a full dose, so she opened a packet from her armor and got a little on her finger and wiped it over a cut on her cheek. "See?" she said, gesturing to it as the skin closed. 

"I know some salarians who would love to get their hands on that," he said and began to unfasten the shoulder piece on his armor. 

"What's a salarian?" she asked, trying to hide her curiosity as he laid the shoulder piece aside and went to work on his gauntlet. 

He looked up at her. "How is it that you can speak Galactic Standard but you don't know what a salarian is? Have you heard of the asari?" 

"No," she answered. "Is that what you call it? Are those other species? Are there more than just the turians out there?" 

He gave that rolling, rumbling laugh again and said, "Yeah, you could say that. Your military doesn't tell your people much, does it? Turians, salarians, and asari make up what we call the Council races. Then there are the quarians, krogans, hanar, volus, drell, batarians, vorcha, elcor, and a few others." 

She gaped at him as he moved to his chest piece. "A dozen?" she asked weakly. "There are a dozen different alien races out there? And the Alliance knows this? What's the Council? Do you work together? Why aren't the others included? Are the asari and salarians as aggressive as the turians? Is that why your species allied with them? Did you conquer the rest of the galaxy or something? Is that what you're trying to do with us? Force us into subservience of your Council?" 

"Whoa," he said, holding up his hands. "Slow down. Yes, there are quite a few other species. Yes, the Alliance knows about the Council. Galactic Standard is a language that, so far, every species is capable of speaking and so it's the standard one to allow communication without the aid of translators. I think the salarians developed it. No, we aren't trying to force you into subservience and no, we didn't conquer the galaxy. The Council brings peace, not war. I'll tell you what. You help me take care of these wounds you inflicted and I'll give you a history lesson." 

Curiosity won out over reserve. Shepard could still remember a time when humanity had thought it was alone in the galaxy and believed that space was theirs for the taking. The memories were vague but she could remember learning that it wasn't true and that there were others out there. Human entertainment had almost invariably portrayed aliens as violent, invading species bent on the destruction of humanity or Earth and either viciously destructive, mindless drones, or bumbling incompetents. The idea of aliens as enemies had been deeply ingrained into the human psyche long before First Contact and when the turians had attacked the team attempting to open the dormant mass relay, it hadn't been much of a stretch to place them in the category of hostile invaders. 

The decades that followed hadn't lessened that impression much though the humans had been surprised by the level of discipline the birds had, their technological skill, and their intelligence. These were no mindless drones but no one seemed to have a clue how to end the war with them. They'd attacked first. Humanity wasn't going to back down. They weren't offering terms. So the war went on until it became the defining aspect of her species. 

Shepard herself had grown up planning to join the Alliance like her mother to fight the alien invaders and on her eighteenth birthday, she'd joined the neverending lines of bright and hopeful young people streaming into recruiters' offices across Earth and her colonies, eager to prove and make a name for themselves. She'd flown through the ranks and had made a name for herself that had outshined even her mother, Captain Hannah Shepard, when she'd reclaimed first Shanxi and then Elysium and then Mindoir from their turian occupiers. 

She was acclaimed as the next Admiral Jon Grissom and why not? He was her father, after all. Her mother didn't know that she knew but she'd begun to wonder about it when he'd attended her N7 pinning ceremony and had made himself into something of a mentor. Admiral Grissom was notorious for his hatred of people so it hadn't made sense until she'd noted that his fierce desire for privacy and autonomy was something she shared and her dreams about space were almost identical to his. Their temperaments, personalities, likes, and dislikes had meshed far too much for coincidence and she'd eventually confronted him and learned the truth. She suspected there was a sister out there somewhere but he didn't say and she didn't care to ask. She wondered if he knew that there was more out there than what the Alliance had publicized and decided he had to. She was going to have a word with him about keeping it from her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * A bit of Disney humor. I really like that line in Mulan, lol.


	3. Chapter 3

Nihlus found the human’s curiosity strangely endearing and kind of…cute. The extent of his interactions with them up to this point was killing them. He’d never talked to one before and had never paid more than cursory attention to them beyond evaluating what he would need to do to kill them. He had already admired this one’s intellect and calm under pressure. He saw it reflected in a different way now as they spoke. Her accent was horrendous but she made adjustments to it, copying his inflection, rhythm, and pronunciations. She spoke Galactic Standard like someone who’d spent more time reading it than listening and who’d been taught by another that had done the same. Every race brought their own speech patterns to it, creating dialects within the language, but she had clearly never communicated with someone who was truly familiar with it and recognized that fact. She became easier to understand with every correction she made. 

She was shaped like an asari but the fur on her head was similar to the one quarian’s he’d seen out of her suit. Trela had called it hair. He supposed that was a more appropriate term than fur. Hers was almost the same color as his plates and he thought that was as unique among her species as it was his because he hadn’t seen it before. Her facial structure was similar to a quarian’s as well but with rounded ears rather than pointed ones and flat teeth like an asari. She would likely be considered attractive by either quarian or asari standards. 

Her eyes were wide as she watched him remove his chestplate and pull his undersuit down to examine the wound in his shoulder. She had clearly never seen a turian out of armor before but, rather than revulsion and disgust, she merely looked curious. She moved to the sink that thankfully still had running water and washed her hands before coming to kneel in front of him. Human flexibility was similar to asari as well. A turian couldn’t get into the position she took, at least, not comfortably. She pulled out what looked like a first aid kit and selected a small device that looked like it was used for plucking things. His theory was proven correct when she carefully began to pick the threads from his undersuit and chips of armor that had made their way into the wound. Her eyes flickered up to his and she said, “This might hurt. I’m sorry. I need to get the slugs out. I don’t know how effective this stuff is going to be on you and I don’t want to give it more work than it has to do.” 

“It’s fine,” he said. “I’ve had worse.” 

She nodded and he held himself still as she carefully reached into the hole in his flesh with the little metal device and located the slugs. “You don’t have any major blood vessels here that they could be blocking, do you?” she asked. When he told her he didn’t, she nodded again and pulled the pieces out one by one. He was surprised at how gentle she was. It felt like she was actively trying to make it as painless as possible. He’d half expected her to jab him with it. She surprised him again when she squeezed the medicated gel out onto her fingertips and smoothed it over his hide. Her hands were soft and cool against him and, while she seemed to be noting the texture of his hide, she didn’t seem hesitant about touching him. It was the first time that a human had ever done so and she looked…almost enraptured. 

She seemed to realize that she was lingering too long because she jerked her hand back and he saw her face change color, pinking slightly over her cheeks. She cleaned up without looking at him and said, “Don’t touch that for a few minutes. Let it cure. You owe me a history lesson.” 

“Fair enough,” he said as she resumed her seat against the cabinet. “The center of galactic civilization is a massive space station called the Citadel. The asari discovered it abandoned over two thousand years ago. We believe that it, like the relays, was built by the Protheans, a civilization that lived fifty thousand years ago.” 

“Protheans,” she said. “We found Prothean artifacts on Mars.” 

He nodded. “That’s how most of us gained the ability to go beyond our home systems. Anyway, the asari set up on the Citadel and were discovered by the salarians. They founded the Citadel Council together and then began discovering the other races. The Council’s makeup has changed over the past two millennia, but the asari and salarians have been constants throughout and the turians were brought in about fifteen hundred years ago. Other races are considered associate members and most are granted embassies. They’ve been part of a few major wars in the past but haven’t been the aggressors. The goal of the Council is peace among the races.” 

She listened raptly as he described the various races to her. He could show her holos of them if she hadn’t taken his omni-tool chip away but he thought their temporary alliance was likely too fragile right now to make her willing to return it. He told her about the Rachni Wars and the Krogan Rebellions and she said, “So that’s why your people freaked out when they found us trying to activate the relay. Do my people know this?” 

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m sure they do.” 

“Then why haven’t we been able to come to some type of peace treaty?” she asked. “We don’t want to fight. We’re just trying to protect ourselves. Why hasn’t this Council of yours stepped in and played mediator if they want peace so badly?” 

He shrugged. “The Council doesn’t involve itself in individual governments’ issues. If we were at war with another Council race or if the war began to threaten galactic stability, they would step in but you aren’t and it isn’t yet. I don’t know why our governments haven’t been able to reach an accord. I would assume that neither is willing to back down. Peace requires someone to bend first and turians aren’t really known for that. We try diplomatic solutions first and if that doesn’t work, we only understand total war. Unless the humans bend or the Council steps in, we will continue to fight until you’re conquered.” 

“But you started it!” she exclaimed. “Why should we be the ones to bend? _You_ attacked us! They could have at least tried to explain what we were doing wrong instead of just shooting first and asking questions later.” 

“Does it really matter who started it?” he asked. “That mentality means it won’t end. Would your people rather have pride or peace?” 

“You’ll never convince us to give in,” she said. “That’s tantamount to admitting wrongdoing and we won’t do that. We were wronged and we don’t have a Council of other races to support us. We only have ourselves. How would we know that any type of justice would be served? How are we to know that we won’t just end up as slaves to your people? I’ve heard about what happens to prisoners of war who are captured by your soldiers.” 

“What do you mean?” he asked, ignoring the rest of what she said. He probably wouldn’t convince her and even if he did, she wasn’t high enough in her government to make any real changes. 

“They’re enslaved,” she said. “Forced to serve alien masters.” 

“It isn’t slavery,” he said. “Prisoners of war are treated well and there’s a reason for what we do and why the Council allows it. Slavery is illegal in Citadel space. Our prisoners aren’t slaves.” 

“You have an odd definition of slavery, then,” she said. 

He leaned forward, relieved to find that the medigel seemed to be working on him as his shoulder wasn’t nearly as stiff as it had been before, and said, “We see what your kind does to captives as barbaric. You put them into prisons where they can be tortured, starved, beaten, interrogated, and experimented on. How is that humane? Our prisoners are allowed to live in our homes. They are provided with food, clothing, and shelter. They are not abused or tortured and no one is going to dissect them like a lab animal. Yes, we expect them to serve but we expect every able-bodied person in our society to earn their keep. They learn our ways, they see that we are people with families and friends and hopes and fears just like them, and when the war is over, they are released with a greater understanding of us and us of them. I am not denying that there are times when prisoners are mistreated but those who do it are punished when they are caught. They aren’t our slaves. They’re…more like long-term guests.” 

“Justify it however you want,” she said. “They are still servants who are owned by their masters. I’d rather be in a prison with my own kind than expected to bow and scrape for an enemy.” 

“Are all humans as stubborn as you?” he asked mildly. 

“I’ve been told I’m particularly hard-headed,” she said. “Look, let’s just say the war is off-limits as a topic. We aren’t going to agree and it’ll be easier to get through this if we aren’t at each other’s throats.” She stood. “Your shoulder should be better. Let’s see about getting out of here.” 

He checked the wound and saw that the medigel had sealed it, so he pulled his undersuit back up and replaced his armor before following her to the doorway. The collapse had sealed them in very effectively. It was going to take some digging to get out. They began to work, wrestling chunks of concrete out of the mound blocking the door in the hopes that it was just a small layer of rubble they had to get to. That hope dimmed the further in they went and the larger the discarded pile grew. After only a few hours, he had to concede that this was not going to be an easy task. 

“We’re going to need to shore this up,” he finally said. “We’re essentially being forced to tunnel through and it isn’t stable enough for that. It won’t do either one of us any good if all of this comes crashing down on our heads.” 

“You’re right,” she said. “If we had the tables…the metal shelves, maybe?” 

“We could probably rig something,” he said. 

They returned to the kitchen and he took a drink of water from the faucet and turned to find her laughing behind her hand. At his questioning look, she said, “You drink like a dog. I’m tempted to find you a bowl. And your tongue is blue.” 

“Our blood is blue,” he pointed out. “Your tongue is pink. And short. How do you eat or drink?” 

“It does its job,” she said and pulled a packet from her armor. She squeezed what he guessed was nutrient gel into her mouth and swallowed before saying, “Do you have food?” 

“Some,” he said. “We tend to keep a number of rations on us since we can’t survive off of the land the way you can. We’re dextro-amino based. Your water is safe but your food does little for us. It won’t poison us or anything but we could starve with a full belly.” 

“So taking over our planets wouldn’t really do you much good,” she said. 

“No,” he agreed. “It wouldn’t.” 

He wasn’t truly hungry yet and until they could figure out how long it would take them to get out without bringing the place down on top of them, he wanted to conserve his rations, so he looked around while the human finished her nutrigel. He examined the metal shelving that she had mentioned and decided it could work. It wasn’t as strong as he would have liked and he hoped it didn’t buckle but it was better than nothing and he couldn’t see anything else that would be useful. It would have helped to have more light. Even his vision was straining in the stygian darkness and working by the lights on their weapons was going to get old. He disliked not being able to really see. 

“What’s your name?” she asked suddenly. 

“Lieutenant Nihlus Kryik,” he answered. “What’s yours?” 

“Lieutenant Shepard,” she said. “You seem a bit too old and experienced to just be a lieutenant if your ranks work anything like ours do.” 

He tried to tell himself his laugh wasn’t bitter but knew it was a lie. “I am,” he said. “But I could say the same about you. Do most humans have only one name or do your soldiers give up your family names like our Councilors do?” 

“And you don’t want to talk about it,” she said, moving to help him carry the shelving unit over to the lighted space by her shotgun. “Yes, I have two names. No one uses my given name, not even my mother. Everyone knows me as Shepard. And I'll be getting promoted to Lieutenant Commander in a year. I just don't have the time in grade yet.” 

“The humans have a war hero named Shepard,” he noted, glancing over at her. 

“It’s a fairly common name,” she said, too casually. 

“Uh, huh,” he grunted. “I’m sure there are a lot of Shepards on Shanxi who can take down an entire turian platoon by herself and survive me for two days.” 

“I’m just a soldier,” she said as she knelt down and began to unscrew the shelving unit. “So, what’s your story?” 

“Do you really think it’s wise to get to know one another?” he asked. “We are going to be trying to kill each other again at some point in the near future.” 

“Just making small talk,” she said. “It’s too quiet in here. Makes me feel like I’m in a tomb. This is not the way I want to die. Besides, is it going to stop you from trying to kill me if you feel like you know me?” 

“No,” he said. “I guess not. It might make it more difficult.” 

“You’re probably right,” she said. “I don’t like killing people I like.” 

“In that case,” he said with a grin, “I was born on a mercenary colony in—” 

“Shut up, Kryik,” she laughed. “Damn it, I don’t want to like you. It’s so much easier to kill you when you’re just big, freaky dinosaur birds.” 

“And it’s easier to kill you when you’re just a pyjak,” he retorted. 

“What’s a pyjak?” she asked. 

“You don’t want to know,” he said. “What’s a dinosaur?” 

“You don’t want to know,” she repeated. 

“So we’ll just work together and try not to like each other, then,” he said. 

“Works for me,” she said.


	4. Chapter 4

That plan lasted until nightfall. This part of Shanxi got _cold_ after dark and what warmth had been stored in the walls quickly leached out. She’d used up the power in her armor’s thermal unit the night before and had spent hours shivering in the dark. She wasn’t looking forward to another night of that. The turian, on the other hand, was more prepared. He pulled a silver square from a compartment in his armor and shook it out, revealing what could only be a thermal blanket. She hadn’t packed one as she’d only been intending a quick recon when she’d gone out a few days before. She eyed it enviously as he draped it over his head and settled back against one of the cabinets. Her armor was getting cold and she knew from experience that her underarmor would only do so much once the ablative plating started transferring the chill. It was designed to withstand heat, not cold. 

She didn’t know what to think of him and not thinking of him at all didn’t seem to be working given that he couldn’t get more than a few feet away from her at any point. The birds always seemed so disciplined that she had assumed they were all cold and rigid. His sense of humor had been unexpected and it was somewhat unwelcome as it served to make him more of a person in her eyes and less of a spiky monster. 

He was pretty, too, in a predatory way. Most turians she’d seen were various shades of dull ranging from almost white to silver to dirt brown. His…hide? Scales? Plates? Bone? Whatever it was…was a deep, rich red almost the same shade as her hair. His green eyes glowed in the dark like a cat and gave him the appearance of sharp intelligence. The tattooed or painted markings on his face were elegant and made him appear more refined and civilized than some of the others. His movements were graceful and fluid and she had to admit that his broad chest and trim waist were kind of appealing. 

“You’re shaking,” he said. “Asari shake when they’re cold.” 

“So do we,” she said through a jaw clenched tight to prevent her teeth from chattering. “I’m tempted to go start digging again to warm up.” 

“You’re exhausted,” he said. 

“Never stopped me before,” she told him. The idea of warming up even if it was through physical labor was appealing. At least when she collapsed, she wouldn’t be cold. 

“Are you up for a little trust exercise?” he asked. 

She looked over at him suspiciously. “What kind of trust exercise?” 

He said, “You’re cold. I’m cold. I have a blanket. Now, I can be rude and keep it for myself and let you further exhaust yourself trying to stave off hypothermia or I can be polite and share. If I do that, though, we’re both going to have to take our armor off because it works better with body heat to reflect back. And either one of us can easily kill the other in our sleep.” 

“We have a truce, right?” she asked. “You haven’t broken it yet and you could have bashed my head in with a rock while we were working. I could have, too, for that matter. So I think we’re safe for the moment.” 

“Okay,” he said. “Then come on before the temperature drops any further. Last night wasn’t fun. Turians don’t like the cold.” 

She stretched her stiff muscles and went over to him. He was already starting to remove his armor and she did the same. The air was biting even through her underarmor but the promise of the blanket kept her going even if it did mean getting close to the alien in the room. She knew it was a risk but, as she’d said, he could have killed her several times already that day and she thought that, at least for now, he needed her as much as she needed him. He wouldn’t take her out now. If he was going to turn on her, he'd do it once they were free or close enough to it that he could get out on his own. Maybe getting to know each other wasn’t such a bad idea. It might incentivize him to honor their bargain. She didn’t trust his word alone. It had been given under duress. Breaking it might not count as a lie in his mind. 

She raised a brow when he spread his legs and patted the floor between them. Apparently, they were going to get a little closer than she’d intended. “Hurry up,” he said. “It’s freezing.” 

“If you kill me, I will haunt you,” she promised. 

“Turians don’t believe in ghosts,” he told her as she sat down. He wrapped the blanket tightly around them and she almost groaned at the heat radiating off of him. In spite of herself, she leaned back into him. His chest was hard and came to a slight point in the center—like a bird—but he moved her until she was sitting at an angle that had her almost tucked up between his chest and arm and that wasn’t as uncomfortable. It was almost like he had experience cuddling with people shaped like her and she remembered his comparison of humans to asari. Did the other aliens date each other? Did he have an asari or turian girlfriend back home waiting for him? 

“No,” he answered, sounding amused, when she asked. “Most races do date each other and I’ve had a few asari girlfriends and I dated a quarian for a while but relationships don’t tend to last long when you’re deployed more often than you’re home. You?” 

“No,” she answered. “I was engaged once but he died.” 

“Killed in the war?” he asked. 

“Car wreck,” she answered. “He was messaging me on his omni-tool and hadn’t set the autopilot. Clipped the side of a building and went down. He didn’t have his safety harness on and was ejected from the vehicle. He died on impact.” 

“Damn,” he said. “I’m sorry.” 

“I’d warned him about that,” she said. “He was just as stubborn as me. Thought he was ten feet tall and bulletproof. So why are you still just a lieutenant? There’s a story there.” 

“It’s a long one,” he said. 

“We have all night,” she pointed out. “Come on, Kryik. You don’t know me. I don’t know you. One of us will probably be dead in a few days so why not just tell me? Sometimes it’s easier to talk about shit with a stranger.” 

“All right,” he said and she felt him lean back. “Like I said earlier, I really was born on a mercenary colony. My parents were both mercs. My father died when I was sixteen and my mother decided that I was following too closely in his footsteps. She told me that he hadn’t actually been my father and then sent me to Palaven to join the military. Most turians start training at fifteen, so I was already behind my peers, I didn’t know anyone, I was barefaced, and I was angry.” 

“Barefaced?” she asked. 

“No markings,” he explained. “Our colony markings tell where we’re from, provide a sense of community and accountability. I didn’t have any at the time.” 

“You were an outcast,” she said. 

“Yes,” he agreed, “and that is not something a turian wants to be. Our society is highly communal. Independence is discouraged and distrusted but where I came from, independence was necessary because your best friend one day might be the guy stabbing you in the back the next. Turians are very…homogenized. Free-thinking is the mark of a rebel and considered dangerous to the cohesiveness of the whole. I’m not a good turian. I was at the top of all of my classes but my superiors didn’t like me and my peers didn’t trust me.” 

“Humans value the ability to think outside the box,” she said. “You’d be promoted, not held back. That’s an admirable trait.” 

“Your species certainly is adaptable,” he said. “Mine is as well but in a uniform way. I don’t fit the mold, so my career stalled before it even got started. I don’t have a problem disobeying an order I know is bad. Most turians won’t do that. So I’ve been labelled reckless, disobedient, and insubordinate. My superiors pass me off to new units as soon as they can. I’m on my third now. Fortunately, the one in charge of this unit is a little different. He doesn’t like procedures and restrictions any more than I do and he thinks I’m creative. It isn’t advancing me up the meritocracy but I am getting to work with a Spectre and it very well may get me out of the military and away from this damn war.” 

“What’s a Spectre?” she asked. “And do you really disagree with the war?” 

“Spectres are the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance division,” he explained. “They’re an elite group of soldiers who answer directly to the Council. General Arterius is one of their top agents. The Hierarchy only calls him in now for the more difficult missions. And, yes, I disagree with the war. I think it’s gone on too long, it’s based on a misunderstanding, and I don’t believe in fighting for the sake of fighting.” 

“And yet you keep fighting,” she said. 

“I’m not a good turian,” he said, “but I am still turian.” 

She settled deeper into his arms and said, “There’s an old human saying: ‘Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.’ Don’t let them make you feel stupid for being what you are, Nihlus. Different is good. Don’t be ashamed of that.” 

“Thank you, Shepard,” he said. “Is your curiosity satisfied now?” 

“I don’t think that will ever happen,” she said with a smile. “I want to know all about the other species and the Citadel and what the rest of the galaxy is like.” 

“Adventurous?” he asked. 

“I think it’s genetic,” she said and decided to tell him something she’d never told another human. Call it quid pro quo. “My father was in charge of the first human team to go through the relay and leave the Sol System. Can you imagine the kind of courage that had to have taken? How amazing it would have been to be the first of your kind to do that? To be the first human eyes to see what he saw? He was my hero when I was a kid and when I found out he was my father…I was awestruck. I can’t tell anyone, though. He’s afraid nepotism would ruin my career and he’s a very private individual.” 

He rumbled in his chest and said, “I know something about that. I was twenty when I found out who my real father was. He gave me his colony markings but he’s…high up and it wouldn’t do for people to find out he’d fathered the bastard child of a mercenary, especially with my reputation. His wife probably wouldn’t appreciate it, either, given that they haven’t had kids of their own and her position is tenuous at best.” 

She groaned. “Don’t tell me you guys still do that whole thing where if a female doesn’t get pregnant, it’s her fault.” 

“What?” he asked, sounding confused. “No. She’s a lower tier than he is. Their marriage is entirely political. Until they have children, the marriage can be dissolved and her family was recently embroiled in a scandal that removed all of the political clout she brought to it. Why would she be blamed for being infertile? She can’t control that.” 

“It’s happened in our history,” she said. “Not so much anymore but there was a time when a man could divorce his wife if she didn’t get pregnant or didn’t have a male child who could carry on the family line. The ironic thing is that it’s the male who passes on the genetic material that determines gender, not the female.” 

“Humans are strange,” he said. “Gender really doesn’t matter to us. Females generally choose to remain in Hierarchy space and take on non-combat roles but that comes down to personal preference and temperament. Females are more family-minded while males are more community-minded. They would rather defend their homes than go out looking for trouble. Most of the garrisons on my homeworld are staffed by females and they’re just as tough as the males if not more so because by the time trouble gets to them, things have gone very wrong and they’re expected to be able to handle it. We don’t care what gender you are. We just care that you can get the job done.” 

His voice was surprisingly soothing and his warmth combined with the heat reflecting back from the blanket made her feel cocooned and inexplicably safe. She felt her tension beginning to ease and she relaxed more fully into him as he talked. Their societies were very different but there were still an amazing number of similarities. She had expected aliens to be entirely foreign, not to share in some of the most basic practices like marriage or divorce or set systems of government. Hierarchical meritocracies didn’t exist in human culture anymore but they had in some places in the past. 

It was getting harder to think of him as an alien. He had a mother who loved him and was concerned enough for his well-being to send him away. He had experienced loneliness and discrimination for being different. He had a secret father just like her. “How different are we, really?” she asked. 

He seemed to follow the jump in her train of thought. “Not as much as you would think if the other races are any indication,” he said. “We all have some sort of common ground somewhere and some things are universal.” She felt his hand stroke her hair and started slightly. “Sorry. Your…hair, is it? Your hair was tickling my chin.” 

It was such a human complaint that she couldn’t help but laugh. “And there’s one of them,” she said. “Hair always gets in the way.” 

“I like it,” he said. “It’s soft. Quarians are the only other race with hair and very few people know that because very few have ever seen them outside of their suits.” 

That led to a new line of questioning and she relaxed further as he told her about the quarians and their geth creations that had driven them off of their homeworld. Having to wear a suit constantly didn’t sound pleasant but she didn’t think the idea of living on starships and traveling the galaxy sounded bad at all. Perhaps it was because of her nature or perhaps it was because she’d grown up as a military brat and had never truly called anywhere home but she didn’t see much of a downside to the travel part. He was an excellent storyteller and she found herself fighting sleep as she struggled against the soothing rumble of his voice and the lulling warmth around her so that she could continue listening to him. Soon, however, she could no longer fight the demands of her body and sleep overtook her.


	5. Chapter 5

She was asleep. Nihlus had almost expected her to stay awake throughout the night. He certainly hadn’t expected her to fall asleep in his arms. He also hadn’t expected to enjoy having her there. It had been a long time since he’d simply held someone and it was strange that doing so with a member of an alien race with whom his people were at war could be so pleasant. He was going to have to be careful. He was under no illusions that their truce would last past their escape. She might be friendly now but she was still Shepard and she was still dangerous. 

He’d recognized her name. Every turian knew of Shepard, the human who’d managed to take down some of their best military leaders. She was the reason his team was here. Saren didn’t get called in for minor missions. It was just pure blind luck that the human he’d been chasing had turned out to be the one they were tasked with finding and taking out. That left him with a dilemma. 

He could take her out now when her defenses were down. It would make escape more difficult but even if he didn’t get out, he’d know that he died completing his mission and he was all right with that. His options at the time that she’d presented him with his choices had been to go along with her plan or to die without completing his mission and he was not all right with that. Therefore, he could reasonably state that his promise was coerced from him. However, he had reiterated it once he was free, so that starship didn’t fly. If he killed her now, his honor would die with her. 

Alternatively, he could continue with her plan and hope that he managed to kill her once they were free and risk her escaping. She had proven very resilient and crafty and her escape was a legitimate risk. He could fail his mission. Saren would be furious to discover that he’d had her and allowed her to get away. He would understand keeping his word but it might not matter to him. If he was reassigned again, any hopes of advancing in the Hierarchy would be shot. He would never become a Spectre. He would end up just another merc like his parents and would probably die from it like his stepfather. Mercenaries had no honor. The only way he could get out of this with his intact would be to keep his word to her and then kill or capture her the moment he had the chance. 

The latter idea gave him pause. He didn’t truly want to kill her. He wanted to prevent her from killing more of his people. If he captured her, she would be taken to Palaven or to the Citadel and assigned to someone. She had stated that she’d rather be in a prison than what she felt amounted to slavery but would she rather be a temporary servant or dead? At least as a prisoner of war, she would be able to return to her people when it was over. 

If he was the one to capture her, that would give him merit with Saren if not the Hierarchy itself and secure his potential for Spectre training. He could also choose to keep her himself and that would allow him to ensure that she wasn’t mistreated. She wouldn’t be able to harm any more of his people and maybe with her out of the picture, the Alliance would reconsider and be willing to engage in peace talks. They would never bend as long as she was out there winning all of their battles. He could end the war, maintain his honor, advance his position, and keep her safe. The vast majority of human prisoners were held on Palaven but that was because their captors tended to live on Palaven. He lived on the Citadel. She wanted to see it. She wanted to see the other races and to learn about galactic civilization. He could show that to her. She could be one of the first humans to experience it, a pioneer like her father. 

Of course, that was all assuming she didn’t kill him first. That risk increased if his goal was capture. She would be coming after him with everything she had while he would be limited by attempting to disable her and take her down without harming her. He’d have likely been a dead turian already had the building not collapsed. Any other human probably would have killed him while he was unconscious, though, and she hadn’t. Her reasons had been pragmatic but she could get out of here on her own. She didn’t _need_ his help to escape. He would make it easier but she was strong, she was a biotic, she had food and water and shelter. She could survive here indefinitely until she could either dig her own way out or call out for help. 

She might not realize it but she’d shown mercy and a type of honor of her own in insisting that she take him down fairly if she did it. He wouldn’t repay that by killing her if he had another choice. She might not like it but she would be alive and, for reasons he didn’t yet entirely understand, he wanted her to stay alive. He liked her. He admired her. More than that, though, she was the first person other than Saren to look at him and see something other than a troublemaker. She was the first one to ever see just how deeply the rejection of his people had affected him and how hard he had tried to change himself to fit their mold and how discouraged it had made him when he’d failed. 

No amount of colony markings or changes to his mannerisms or distancing himself from his upbringing was going to change who he was or make him more acceptable to them. In the eyes of his people, he would always be the mercenary who’d dared to try to become one of them and, worst of all, failed to integrate. She, like Saren, saw something more in him and, for some reason, it mattered to him that she did. When she turned more fully into him, seeking his warmth and possibly comfort in the dark, he drew her closer and rested his chin on her head. He fell asleep with her nose pressed up against his throat and her arms around his chest. 

He woke the following morning when she stiffened in his arms. He peeked down at her to find her attempting to extricate herself and she looked up at him when he released her. “We’re still alive,” she said. 

“Mmh,” he grunted, rubbing his hands over his face. He would kill for kava. Waking up in the dark was disorienting and only the faint light shining through the cracks in the rubble around the ceiling above them told him that the sun had risen. He turned his wrist to check the time on his omni-tool before remembering that she’d taken it. She was rooting around in one of the cabinets and he heard a grateful sigh escape her. He looked up at the remains of the ceiling again and noted a piece that looked loose and lacking structural importance. If he could dislodge it without bringing the whole thing down, they could at least have light. 

She glanced over at him when he jumped up onto the counter and reached up. “What are you doing?” she asked. “You’re going to get us crushed.” 

“No, I’m not,” he said and wiggled the rock. It was definitely loose and seemed to be resting on top of a smaller hole created by the pieces around it. He gave it a gentle push and it moved. Another sent it tumbling away and a shaft of light speared through, brightening the room. She blinked up at him and he grinned. “Told you so,” he said. “I know what I’m doing.” 

“Don’t gloat,” she said. “It’s not attractive.” 

He chuckled as he jumped down. “I didn’t think humans found anything about us attractive. Your descriptors of us aren’t terribly flattering. What, exactly, is a cuttlebone?” 

“Fishbone,” she answered, pouring something dark and loose into a machine. She followed it with water she’d collected while he was moving the rock and pushed a button. The machine began to gurgle and a moment later, a rich, nutty scent filled the air as dark liquid poured into a cup. 

“What is that?” he asked. 

“Coffee,” she answered. “Breakfast of champions. I need caffeine. There’s no crisis to wake me up.” 

The human equivalent of kava, then. He felt a pang of envy as he pulled out one of his ration packs. With luck, it would have a powdered variety that would taste terrible, especially cold, but give him the kick he sought. He tore the pack open and dumped the contents onto the counter. _Sila_ , _penac_ , and _lachti_ greeted him along with a packet of blessed kava. He activated the heating pack for the food while he mixed water and the kava in a cup. 

“That looks like something you want warm,” she said. 

When he nodded, she took it from him and placed it into another machine. A few seconds later, she brought it back out and he saw steam rising from it. He noted the heating unit and how she’d operated it for future reference. He had a similar machine at home but it was operated differently. He tested the temperature and drank the brew in a single gulp. It was far too bitter and grainy for his taste but it was still kava. “Thank you,” he said gratefully. 

“You’re welcome,” she replied and began arranging food on a plate which she put into the heating unit. She gestured him over and he watched over her shoulder as she typed in the commands. “It doesn’t take much. Five seconds is good for most things unless you like your food hotter than we do. Start there and you can always add time if it isn’t warm enough.” The machine pinged as she finished her sentence and she withdrew the food and hopped up to sit on the counter. He joined her when his was ready and they ate in companionable silence. When they’d finished and cleaned up after themselves, she said, “Thanks for the light. I hate eating in the dark.” 

“You’re welcome,” he said. “I was starting to get a headache from straining to see.” 

“It should make our work easier today,” she said. “We’ll still need our lights but this will help. I’ll even let you have your rifle back so that you have one, too.” 

“I’d rather have my omni-tool,” he said. 

She cut her eyes over at him and said, “I don’t think I trust you that much yet. I don’t know if you can get comms out and I’d rather not be ‘rescued’ by your people. They didn’t promise not to kill me on sight. We’ll get out on our own, thank you very much.” 

He wasn’t surprised and couldn’t blame her for her caution. He could always try to find it later but he could, in fact, get comms out on it and if she kept it, then he didn’t have to find an excuse for not calling for backup. He dropped the subject as they put their armor back on and returned to the cafeteria to begin digging again.


	6. Chapter 6

Carving a path through the rubble was easier said than done. The one time they tried to dig up rather than out, the whole thing threatened to come down on them. So they spent two days focused on creating a tunnel and shoring it up with the shelving she'd rigged into posts and cross-beams. She didn't know if it was going to hold but it made them feel better about moving further into the cramped space. When they ran out of shelving, she planned to see if he could help her free the metal countertops from the cabinets. Everything in the kitchen was now a tool if they could figure out how to use it. 

He was quiet as they worked and she, too, was lost in thought. She wondered what was going to happen when they managed to get through. She would kill him if she had to but that didn't mean that she wanted to. She'd come to like him even more as she'd gotten to know him. Someone like Nihlus could actually change things if his people would let him. If he was the one in charge of trying to arrange a peace with the Alliance, humanity might actually be willing to work with him. Unfortunately, he wasn't but the war would end someday and humanity was going to find itself thrown into a larger galactic community, one the turians were an integral part of. A friendly voice on that end could go far. 

She thought that maybe the turian system with POWs had a little bit of merit. If she knew that she could ensure his safety, she might try to capture rather than kill him. She couldn't, though. He had been right that turian prisoners of war were subject to imprisonment, torture, and experimentation. By the time the Alliance was finished with him, he would despise humanity and her reasons for wanting to keep him alive would disappear. No, she couldn't turn him over to them. What, then? Let him go? 

She might be able to do that. She was considerably smaller than he was. If she could get out of here before he could, she could leave. He would dig himself the rest of the way out and she would be gone. They could both go back to their people stating that the other escaped. That would be the safest course. If not and if he didn't turn on her the moment they cleared the rubble, she could always just tell him to go. That involved more risk but at least then he would know that she had let him go, which could breed more goodwill. Captain Anderson would be livid but she thought Admiral Hackett and her father would understand her reasoning. 

She moved a chunk of concrete as Nihlus dislodged another and the metal groaned around them. She was moving even as it began to shriek and pebbles rained down. She took Nihlus by the arm to pull him out but the moment of resistance from him was enough that the first block that fell caught him on the crown of his head between his face plates and fringe and he crumpled. The next block hit his fringe with a sickening crack and she threw a barrier up around them as she grabbed him roughly under the arms and dragged him out with the cave crumbling behind them. They made it out without a moment to spare. Dust billowed from the solid wall of what had been their escape route and she turned her head to avoid breathing it in as she continued to pull him further into the kitchen. She wanted him under the one solid point of the roof in case the reverberations of the cave-in destabilized the rest. 

She threw herself over him and held the barrier until the dust had settled and she was confident that the roof over them would hold. Nihlus was still unconscious, so she checked him over for blood and went in search of the first aid kit. Two of the spines on his head were broken, so she found a set of splints designed for fingers and rigged them in a way she hoped would work and keep them stable. She applied medigel to the scrape on his head and then tried to find a way to lay him that wouldn’t put pressure on his injuries until he awoke. She finally settled for sitting with her legs crossed and his head in her lap. The spines—he called them fringe—rested in the gap. It was the best she could do. 

While she waited for him to wake up, she looked at the rubble in the doorway. Their plan wasn’t going to work. They didn’t have anything strong enough to bear the weight of the debris and they had yet to reach the end and didn’t know how far it went. The dining hall was long, designed to fit an entire garrison, and even going at an angle toward the side walls was taking them too far. She looked up at the roof above them. The slab that remained might fall at an angle that would allow them to climb up but they would have to find a place where they wouldn’t be crushed by the broken pieces that would come down in chunks like the one that had knocked him out. Her barrier wasn’t strong enough to protect them if they got buried alive. They had to find a way out before Nihlus starved to death. She didn’t know how many rations he had left or how long they would last him but it couldn’t be much given the way he’d been conserving them over the past days. 

She looked down at his unconscious form. It was bizarre to think that she was sitting with a turian’s head in her lap—at least when that head was still attached to a living body—or that she had spent the past three nights asleep in his arms. Her truce had become far more serious than she had originally intended or imagined. She had never been this close to one that was still alive before and she found herself examining the fleur de lis shape of his brow plates, the straight line of his nose, the angles of his lips and odd jaws that covered a row of needle-sharp teeth, and the sweep of his fringe. 

Curiously, she lightly traced the elegant curves of the colony markings that covered most of his face. She had thought that the plating on their faces was pure bone but she’d been wrong. Rough, leathery hide covered the plates and the marked places were slightly smoother as if the process of etching them into his skin had evened it out. The hide on the side of his neck behind his mandibles was textured differently and felt like pebbled suede. Altogether, touching him was different but not unpleasant and she thought absently that he was beautiful in a dangerous sort of way. 

Her fingers trailed over the markings on the unbroken spines of his fringe and she thought she saw his mandibles relax. She wondered if that was a subconscious signal of security or comfort in much the same way that stroking a human’s hair could be. She repeated the motion and his breathing evened out. Huh. He liked having his fringe stroked. It was strangely soothing to her, too, and so she continued. When she moved to the underside of the spines, she found that they had a warm, velvety texture that she hadn’t expected. He moved almost imperceptibly, pressing the soft hide into her fingertips and she used her other hand to trace the colony markings on his brow again. Her eyes returned to his face and she found his brilliant green eyes open and looking up at her. She became aware of a sound like a big cat purring and reflexively jerked her hands away, feeling like she’d been caught doing something she wasn’t supposed to. She wondered what she would think if she’d woken in his lap with his hand in her hair and tracing her face. It would certainly send a confusing message. 

“I don’t think I know you well enough for that just yet,” he said in a voice that was more purr than words, “but if you want to blow off some steam, you could have just asked. You didn’t have to knock me out to get your hands on me.” 

“I think your brain got a little addled,” she said. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” 

His eyes glittered and she swore she saw mischief in them when he said, “The underside of the fringe is an erogenous zone. The forehead sends a…slightly different message. You basically just propositioned me. Not that I’m opposed,” he added quickly and she was certain now that he was teasing her to see her squirm. “I just typically prefer to actually get to know someone before I call her mine. Do all humans move that fast?” 

“All right, all right,” she said. “I’m sorry. You can stop teasing me now.” 

“You’re the one doing the teasing,” he grumbled playfully. “I mean, it works with asari and quarians. Humans can’t be that different, right?” 

“I should have just left your ass in the tunnel,” she said, rolling her eyes. 

“Hot and cold; just like a woman,” he sighed. 

“I definitely should have left your ass in the tunnel,” she said again. 

“You’d have missed me,” he said and pushed himself slowly into a sitting position with a hand against his head. 

“You okay?” she asked when he winced. 

“Fine,” he said. “Just a headache. How long was I out?” 

“Half an hour,” she said. 

He looked over at the doorway and groaned. “I guess that route’s no good. Any ideas?” 

“None so far,” she said. “Maybe a controlled collapse of the roof in here?” 

“How, exactly, do you propose we control the collapse?” he asked. 

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I’m no structural engineer as evidenced by the cave in of our tunnel. We need to figure something out, though.” 

“Let’s eat first,” he suggested. 

She was opening her mouth to agree with him when he leaned forward and placed his lips against hers. She froze in place and his hand slid along her jaw to bury in her hair and she felt his lips move in a surprisingly accurate approximation of a kiss. His tongue flicked against her lips before sliding between them and stroking her own. She was shocked by the heat that burst inside of her and at feeling her own hand cup his mandible and slide around the back of his neck. When he pulled away, she groaned and whispered, “What was that for?” 

“Payback,” he said with a grin as he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Hungry?” 

“You’re an ass,” she said. 

“Guilty as charged,” he said lightly and got to his feet. She stared up at him as he drew out a ration pack and moved to the cabinets in search of a plate. He’d kissed her. An _alien_ had kissed her. And she’d liked it. What the hell had gotten into her?


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NSFW

Nihlus observed out of the corner of his eye as Shepard continued to stare at him with a stunned look on her face. Admittedly, he’d intended the kiss as a joke, assuming that humans were familiar with the practice. Most species with lips like hers were and Ta’vi had made sure he’d learned. He’d wanted to shake her the way she’d shaken him. He hadn’t expected to actually enjoy it or for her to respond. 

Waking up to her hand on his fringe and the other tracing his brow so gently combined with the unexpected tenderness on her face had brought him into consciousness with a mix of desire and an unwise dose of that same tenderness that had overcome the pain of his injuries. He could too easily picture them on the couch in his apartment on the Citadel as lovers rather than the enemies he was quickly forgetting they were. He’d have wondered if it was a ploy to throw him off guard if he’d thought she’d known what she was doing. 

He wanted her. There was no doubt in his mind about that. He couldn’t have her. He didn’t doubt that, either. When they eventually did get out of this, he was going to be forced to either kill or capture her. That didn’t leave much room for exploring desire. Turian views on things like sex were very loose but he imagined that sleeping with a target was across the line even for him. It didn’t make him want her any less and the only thing that truly kept him from trying was the thought that she very likely would kill him if she thought he’d been at all serious. He reminded himself that he was the first alien she’d ever actually talked to. Being around other species was a normal thing for him. She was still trying to wrap her mind around the fact that there were races other than theirs. The idea of sleeping with the enemy had probably never occurred to her, especially when that enemy wasn’t even a member of her own species. 

She rose slowly and began preparing her own food as he put his into the heating unit. He expected awkwardness or discomfort from her but instead, she turned and crossed her arms over her chest with an expression he couldn’t decipher. The corner of her mouth tipped up as she said casually, “So, say I wanted to…blow off steam as you put it...” 

She recovered much faster than he’d given her credit for and he was taken aback by her directness but he turned and said just as casually, “Like I said, I wouldn’t be opposed.” He watched her reaction, trying to get a read on what she was doing. Was she paying him back for making her uncomfortable and trying to do the same to him? Was she serious? Their eyes locked, tension building between them until it was a tangible thing. Nihlus forced himself to look away. This was a terrible idea. There was no way that it would end well. “Of course, we are—” he began but was interrupted as his arms were suddenly full of human woman. She wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck. 

“Come on, Nihlus,” she said. “Wanna indulge a little curiosity?” 

Then her lips were on his, her mouth pressing desperately against him and he forgot why he’d thought this was a bad idea. His hands fumbled at her armor, the need to feel her soft skin pressed naked against him overpowering any sanity that might have been left. She chuckled against his lip plates and leaned back tightening her legs around his waist for balance and making his head spin. She stripped her braces, shoulder pieces, and chest plate, letting them fall to the floor around them as he did the same. She returned to him, running her fingers along the underside of his fringe, and he turned and settled her on the countertop. 

Tracing her tongue with his, he found the cord on the back of her undersuit and tugged, feeling it give way. He retracted his talons and ran his fingers down the silky skin covering the knobby line of her spine. Here and there, they met imperfections as scars revealed themselves and he traced them, savoring the warmth of her flesh. When he pulled the suit down, baring her torso, she pulled away and dark eyes met his. He paused, seeing the uncertainty growing in them. “What if this doesn’t work?” she asked. 

He thought for a moment and said, “It’ll make killing each other later that much easier?” 

He was relieved when she laughed. “I suppose it will,” she said. 

He stroked her cheek and said, “Don’t worry. I think I know what I’m doing and we’ll figure it out together.” 

“I don’t want to kill you, Nihlus,” she said softly. 

“I don’t want to kill you, either,” he admitted. “We’ll figure that out, too.” 

She nodded and pressed her lips to his again. Sparks flew between them as hunger grew. The feeling of her small, nimble hands lowering his undersuit had him growling deep in his chest. She groaned in response and he distantly felt her hands traveling over his chest plates before dipping in to stroke the softer hide between. He hissed in a breath and she noted his reaction because she lowered her head and drew her tongue along the gap at his shoulder. 

“Spirits, woman,” he groaned as she nipped lightly at the side of his neck and scraped her flat teeth over his collar, “are you sure you haven’t done this before?” 

“I’m a quick study,” she said lightly and he couldn’t disagree, especially when her hands ran down his side and brushed over his waist. His fingers tightened on her and he heard his subvocals go haywire. “I’d say that’s a good spot,” she murmured, trailing her tongue up the side of his neck. 

“You could say that,” he said and brought his hands up to cup her breasts. Asari liked contact there and it seemed that she did, too, as she pressed herself more fully into his hands. She gasped when his thumbs brushed over her nipples and he bent his head to run his tongue along the shell of her ear. It was a guess, spurred by the reaction of his quarian lover, and proved to be a good one as she shivered and nipped his mandible. She was going to be the death of him. 

His experiences with quarians and asari meant that he was able to guess where many of her erogenous zones were but as he explored her, he found some that the others didn’t share. Her throat was as sensitive as a turian’s and she had no hesitation about baring it for him, telling him that it probably didn’t hold the same significance for her but sending signals to him anyway. When he scraped his teeth lightly over the top of her shoulder, she moaned and her nails scraped over the back of his neck and damn if _that_ didn’t send even more messages he didn’t need. When he ran his talons carefully down her back, she arched into him and the sound of his name on her lips threatened to drive him mad with lust. The scent of her desire, sweet and rich, filled his nostrils and, though it lacked the right pheromones to tell him instinctively what it was, it was heady all the same. 

His hands framed her waist and he groaned. She wasn’t as slim as a turian or quarian but had more curve than an asari and he noted that he could almost wrap his hands completely around her. The muscle in her abdomen tensed and rippled when his thumbs brushed against the waistband of the undergarment she wore beneath the suit and her hips rolled. It was all the encouragement he needed and he knelt to remove her boots and greaves. She leaned back onto her elbows and watched him. It wasn’t difficult now that he’d figured out how her seals worked and he soon had her stripped bare. 

He took her ankle in his hand and began running his lips and tongue up the inside of her leg. A glance up at her showed her biting her lip and watching him closely. Her thigh twitched when he dipped his tongue into the hollow behind her knee and her lips parted slightly as he ran it up the inside of her thigh. The uncertainty returned when he reached the apex of her thighs and kneaded the inside of them with his hands as he examined the flesh before him. Her shape reminded him of a flower native to his homeworld and he wondered suddenly if she, too, was edible. 

The moan that left her lips when he ran his tongue along her folds confirmed that she was, indeed, and he marked a mental point for himself. Asari enjoyed this as well, though quarians didn’t and she was shaped more similarly to the latter, so it had been a near fifty-fifty shot in his mind as her reactions were more asari than quarian. His tongue found a little nub of silky flesh and her hips bucked, so he experimented with pressure and speed until she was writhing and her sex was dripping with moisture. She self-lubricated but it was less viscous than an asari and he found the flavor and texture interesting and not unpleasant. He groaned into her as her fingers twined with the uninjured sections of his fringe and that seemed to do something good to her because her body bowed up and her muscular thighs clamped down on the sides of his head. 

He stroked her entrance with his tongue before dipping inside of her and hearing her shout, “Oh, fuck, Nihlus!” as her nails scraped his fringe. Human males must not be able to do that because the look on her face was as though she had found whatever deity her people worshiped. He explored her with his tongue, enjoying her reactions as he did so. She was so responsive, it made his task easy. His tongue found a slightly rougher patch of skin toward the front of her entrance and when it ran over it, she devolved to an incoherent moan. He pressed his tongue harder against it and flexed the muscle and she screamed his name and locked down around him. He felt the flicker of her biotics against his hide and a deep satisfaction at having been able to please her drove his need for her even higher. 

He had emerged from his plates long ago and he stood and pressed himself against her slick center. She reached up and grasped his collar with her eyes boring into his. He rolled his hips, sliding his cock along her wet folds, and she whimpered when she felt his ridges stroking her center. “Please,” she gasped. “Oh, gods, fuck me, Nihlus.” 

Her hips rolled and he changed his position slightly to align himself better as her legs locked around his waist. Seeing her writhing beneath him, wanting him so badly, was going to drive him mad. He leaned down and trailed kisses down her neck, breathing in the hot scent of her, before licking along the tendon stretching from her collarbone to her jaw. She mewled again when he nipped just below the protruding bone and tilted her head back to grant him access. The sight of her bare throat was the last that he could take and he slipped his length down to press against her more fully. 

Shepard tightened her arms around his neck as he pushed into her. She was tight, oh Spirits, she was so tight. He was half convinced he wouldn’t fit but she stretched to accommodate him, forcing him deeper and deeper, beyond what he imagined she'd be able to take. Her breath came rapidly from her lips and her hips rolled as her hands bore down on the countertop hard enough that he wouldn’t have been surprised to see the metal buckle. 

“Spirits, Shepard,” he groaned when he finally hilted in her. Instinct screamed at him to place his teeth on her throat and take her roughly but he was all too aware of how thin her skin was and how easily he could harm her. Moreover, he knew that, regardless of the message it sent her, it would cross a line from which he couldn’t return. Instead, he withdrew and thrust hard again, snapping his hips against her ass. Shepard moaned and closed her eyes as he moved within her, grinding his plates against her. He was astounded again by how deep she’d taken him and he couldn’t stop himself from nipping lightly at her splayed neck. She really had no idea what that did to him. Her hands gripped his hips and he groaned into her throat. “Is that okay?” he rumbled, trailing his along her collarbone. 

“Oh, gods, yes,” she gasped as her nails scraped along his unplated hide. “Nihlus, please.” His subvocals had long since lost any semblance of coherence and she sounded like she was right on the edge of that as well. Electricity shot through his body and made his head spin. She felt like she’d been made just for him. He lost himself in her and let his instincts take over and pounded into her with deep, hard strokes that quickly built on the tension inside of him. Confident that she was indeed enjoying herself, he began to seek his own pleasure in her. Need burned through his muscles and he grew rougher and more demanding and, to his delight, she responded in kind. He growled into her throat, trembling with the effort to keep himself from burying his talons in her soft skin as her nails dug into the hide at the back of his neck and her teeth clamped down on his shoulder. 

Her voice rose and her body tensed like a bowstring as blue lightning began to flicker over her skin. He tightened his hold on her as she tightened impossibly around him. He reached blindly for the last of his control and clamped his teeth tightly together before burying a snarl in her throat as he pounded into her. Somehow, he managed to not bite down on her tender flesh and to remove his hands from her to dig his talons into the metal counter as he pulsed his release. She went boneless beneath him but he felt her fingers circling gently over the back of his neck. 

He didn’t want to release her. He wrapped his arms around her, cradling her head and holding her close, snuggling into that incredibly soft skin. “Never imagined you'd be a cuddler,” Shepard said, stroking her hand lightly over his fringe. “Are you purring?” 

“Maybe,” he said into her throat. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?” 

“No,” she said, still sounding breathless. “That was…” 

“Fantastic?” he supplied. “Amazing? Best you’ve ever had?” 

“Yes,” she sighed happily. “If all turians are as good as you, we could just fuck the war over. Human women would be demanding peace just for that.” 

“I like to think I’m exceptional,” he said with a grin. 

“Too bad,” she said in mock disappointment. “War it is, I guess.” She shifted beneath him and he reluctantly raised himself off of her. He wasn’t ready to stop touching her yet, though, so he tucked her mussed hair behind her ear and pressed his lips to hers. She surprised him by nuzzling against the side of his face and kissing his mandible. He withdrew from her slowly and she looked down her body with an amused grimace. “We, ah, made a mess,” she said. 

He chuckled and stepped back so that she could sit up. When she turned on the faucet, he turned away to give her privacy to clean up while he searched for a towel with which to wipe down his plates. It should have been awkward. The moments after sex with a new partner generally were and this was a partner who’d never been with one of his species before but it wasn’t awkward with her. They finished cleaning up and she came over to him and wrapped her arms around him. He looped his around her and looked down at her, wondering at this sudden softness. She cocked her head and said, “It isn’t at all romantic, you know. The whole star-crossed lovers trope. It sucks. In a different reality, I think you and I would be friends.” 

In a different reality, he thought they would be much more than friends but he couldn’t say that. He read the acknowledgement in her eyes, though, and completely stunned himself by leaning down and pressing his forehead against hers. Her eyes closed and her arms tightened around him. When she stepped back, she turned away from him and busied herself with her armor. “Shepard,” he began. 

“Don’t,” she said. “We can’t change anything. Let’s not make it any harder than it has to be.” She looked over her shoulder at him and the fine hairs around her eyes were clumped together like they were wet but her face was unreadable and her tone was firm. “I had an idea about getting out of here.” 

He allowed her to shift gears even as he acknowledged that there was no way on Palaven that he was going to be able to kill this woman. “Let’s hear it,” he said. 

“I was thinking we could use your drone,” she said.


	8. Chapter 8

Shepard watched as Nihlus slipped his omni-tool chip back into its port. She didn’t think she was imagining what she’d seen in his eyes and she didn’t think anymore that he would betray her but she still felt a sense of wariness as he called up his drone and sent it out the hole he’d made in the roof. If this worked, they could be out soon and she would have to find a way to either slip away from him or convince him she was letting him go. 

Her earlier excuses about the benefits to humanity felt like just that and she faced this new knowledge of herself without flinching away. Never before had she allowed her personal feelings to overcome her duty but she was going to now. She couldn’t kill him. Somehow, he’d managed to work his way past her defenses, a feat that no human man had ever been able to do. It wasn’t the sex—though she was still a bit shocked that she’d actually had sex with an _alien_ and fucking loved it—as she’d had sex plenty of times before and had never had any difficulty in keeping her emotions in check before. 

No, it was just him. It was his uncertainty, his vulnerability, his humor, his compassion, his intelligence. It was the way he looked at her like there was a part of him that wanted to keep her with him. It was in his troubled uncertainty in moments where he thought she wasn’t paying attention but she could see him fighting with himself. She didn’t know if she loved him but she definitely cared about him and she didn’t want to live in a galaxy that he wasn’t a part of somewhere. She wanted to know that he was out there, that he had the chance to rise above his upbringing and become something more. 

“Got it!” he said. “The room next to the kitchen, the one where they clean the dishes, has a breach in the wall. If we can get to it, we can get out. That should be relatively simple. The doorways are only a few feet apart. We tunneled much further than that before it began to lose stability and we’ll have a wall to help brace the rubble. There may even be pockets we didn’t find before because we weren’t looking in that direction.” 

She nodded with a mix of anticipation and trepidation. “Let’s do it, then.” 

He looked up at her and said, “I suggest we create the hole but remain here tonight. We can…traveling in the dark would normally be smarter but given that neither of us has heating units, I’d rather not risk…” 

“Yeah,” she said quietly. He was thinking that whichever one of them survived would be at risk of hypothermia traveling in the dark without a heat source. He was probably right about that but she was hopeful that they would both be leaving here alive. If they created the hole tonight, she could slip away in the early hours of the morning while he was asleep. She’d only have to deal with the cold for a few hours and they were in her territory. She was more concerned with him being stopped by a patrol. He was smart enough to avoid them, though, and he only had to travel a few miles to be out of their range. He’d be okay. “Good idea.” 

They worked quietly, lost in their own thoughts. Occasionally, Nihlus’ hands would linger on hers as he passed her a hunk of concrete to set aside and his smile when she brought him water and poured it into his mouth while he worked was tender. More than once, she found herself trying to swallow past a hot lump in her throat when she thought about her future and the fact that she would never see him again. This was one of those once-in-a-lifetime life-changing occurrences. She would probably take to the grave the days she’d spent trapped in a collapsed building with a turian soldier during the war. Her breath grew heavy in her lungs and she pushed the thought away. 

“I found the doorway,” he told her. “It looks clear. The hole in this wall is definitely big enough for us to get out. You still want to wait?” 

“Yeah,” she said. It was growing dark and the temperature was already beginning to drop. And, a part of her acknowledged, she wanted a few more hours in his arms before she vanished from his life. 

He nodded acknowledgment and they returned to the kitchen. The tunnel they’d made was small and stable and as long as nothing happened overnight, she was confident it would hold. They ate the food they’d begun to prepare earlier and quietly stripped out of their armor. He unfolded the blanket and opened his arms to her. She went willingly into them and they closed around her, wrapping her in the blanket and his warmth. 

She felt his nose brush against her hair and he breathed deeply, inhaling her scent like he wanted to memorize it. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked. 

“No,” she said, settling deeper into his embrace. There was nothing to talk about. “What do you want to do with your life, Nihlus?” 

“I want to become a Spectre,” he said in a tone that was almost shy. “It isn’t just the lack of oversight or operational freedom. I want to do some good for the entire galaxy, not just my people. What about you? What do you want, Shepard?” 

“I want my own command,” she said, feeling just as shy. “I want a starship. I want to travel the galaxy and to see what’s out there. I want to help the innocent and bring justice to those who deserve it. I want to be a part of something bigger than me, bigger than humanity. I want to make a difference.” 

“I told you we weren’t so different,” he said, pressing his lips to her head. 

“No,” she said, “I suppose we aren’t.” 

She closed her eyes and turned so that she was tucked up under his arm. She wouldn’t have imagined that he could be comfortable but he was and she had to fight to stay awake. She couldn’t risk falling asleep and missing her chance and she wanted to savor these last hours. Unfortunately, he seemed to feel the same way because there was a subtle tension in his body that remained and told her that he was still awake. It was late at night before he finally eased into sleep and she allowed herself to nuzzle against his chest as that lump formed in her throat again. 

When she judged dawn to be an hour or so away, she slipped cautiously from his hold and wrapped the blanket around him once more. Her armor was already neatly stacked beside her, so she picked it up as it would likely be too loud to put on until she was in the other room. She paused and looked down at him for a long moment, memorizing the way he looked in the pale moonlight streaming from the hole in the roof. With a hard swallow, she turned to go. 

The tunnel had held through the night and she pushed her armor ahead of her until she reached the washroom and could stand. She kept her movements as quiet as she could—he had excellent hearing—in order to avoid waking him. The plating was cold but moving through the woods would likely warm her enough to mitigate it. She’d left his weapons behind but hers were already strapped to her back and so once she was dressed, there was no reason to linger. She hesitated in the opening in the wall anyway as a part of her longed to turn around and go back to him, propose that they find a shuttle and just leave, go somewhere that they could be together. It was an impossible idea but her heart gave a traitorous thump regardless. She pushed the desire aside and stepped through the opening. 

“Going somewhere, Shepard?” he asked from behind her. 

She spun around with her weapon raised reflexively and lowered it as soon as she saw that it was him. He’d dressed in his own armor with his weapons on his back and once more looked the quintessential turian soldier. She replaced her pistol on her hip and shrugged. “I can’t kill you,” she said simply. 

He sighed and looked down at his feet before saying, “You know how I mentioned that my supervisor is only called in for missions no one else can do?” He looked up as she nodded. “You’re the mission.” 

“Me?” she asked. 

“You’ve taken out some of our top generals,” he said. “You’ve thwarted every attempt we’ve made to take any of your colonies in the past five years. You’ve killed more of my people than any other human currently active in this war. The Hierarchy wants you out of it. We were sent in to make sure that happened.” 

The pang of betrayal she felt went deeper than it should have. She couldn’t expect him to have told her that before. She never would have trusted their truce and would have killed him on the spot. She couldn’t help questioning everything that had happened. Had he flirted with her in the hopes that he could soften her up enough that she would drop her guard? If so, his plan had probably worked far better than he’d anticipated. She’d played right into it. “Was any of it real?” she asked softly. 

He gave off a rumble that sounded almost mournful and said, “All of it. I care about you, Shepard. I don’t want to kill you.” 

“But you can’t abandon your mission and betray your commander,” she stated. “Your entire future is riding on this.” 

“Everything is riding on this moment,” he said. 

She told herself to go for her gun. He hadn’t drawn his yet. She could get a shot off and run but she would have to kill him to keep him from stopping her. She could charge him and disarm him. Then what? She wasn’t going to take him captive and she wasn’t going to kill him. She couldn’t do it. Her hands remained by her sides. “Make it quick, then,” she finally said. 

“It doesn’t have to be this way, Shepard,” he said pleadingly. “If you come with me, I could keep you as a prisoner. You’d be taken care of. You’d get to see the Citadel and the other races. You’d be returned to your people when the war is over.” 

“Nihlus,” she said chidingly, “this war has lasted my entire life and we’re no closer to peace than we ever were. I’m not going to spend my life as a slave even for you. ‘Give me liberty or give me death.’” 

“Shepard,” he said. 

“No, Nihlus,” she said. “I am under orders not to surrender to any enemy combatant and if I’m captured to take myself out by any means available.” She knew too much and the Alliance couldn’t risk her being taken captive. If the turians found out about the nuclear probes in Hierarchy space, there would never be peace. The turians would wipe humanity out completely. She wouldn’t hesitate to break the pill implanted in her jaw. 

“You’re serious,” he said. “You’d kill yourself. What do you know?” 

“My name is Staff Lieutenant K. Shepard, Alliance Navy N7, service number 5923-alpha charlie-2826, date of birth April 11, 2154,” she said. “That’s all I can tell you.” 

He rubbed his hands over his face and looked up at her with an agonized expression. “You were going to let me go,” he said. She simply nodded. He groaned and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. “Go, Shepard. Run. I can give you ten minutes.” 

“What will you tell your commander?” she asked. 

“That you got away,” he said. “That you took me captive and I was trapped in a collapsed building until I could escape. That you were just a human. I don’t know. I’ll figure it out. The clock is ticking, Shepard. Go. Now.” 

She looked over her shoulder at the opening and then back to him. Impulsively, she darted over to him and grabbed him by the back of the neck. He stiffened but didn’t resist when she pulled his head down to her. “You are a good man, Nihlus Kryik,” she said fiercely. “I don’t care if you’re a good turian or not. You’re a good man. Don’t you ever let them make you believe otherwise. You go back and you become a Spectre and don’t you dare doubt yourself or your worth.” She kissed him hard and then turned and ran out the hole in the wall.


	9. Chapter 9

Shepard stood in the docking bay of Arcturus Station, gazing out over the gleaming silver starship in the dock with _Normandy_ emblazoned on the side in bold block letters. It wasn’t hers but it was a step toward her dream. She was assigned as the executive officer under Captain Anderson, her old commander from Shanxi. It would be good to work under him again. This assignment had a feel of closure to it, of things coming around again and finding balance. The ship itself was the embodiment of that, a marvel of engineering that combined both human and turian design. 

The war had ended more than half a decade before when the Council had finally stepped in and brokered a peace. She would be traveling to the Citadel for the first time in a matter of days and had already met members of several races. Diplomats came to Arcturus fairly regularly now and she never tired of meeting new people of other species. Some days, she thought she felt more at home with them than she did her own people. 

She hadn’t forgotten the turian who’d taken her heart and spared her life in a few short days. She’d seen a red turian on the station just a few days before and thought for a moment that it was him but she’d been wrong. She hadn’t seen his face but he had moved nothing like Nihlus. She’d been disappointed but that feeling was nothing new. She looked for him in the face of every turian she came across but had never seen him. She didn’t even know if he was still alive. A part of her hoped that she would run into him on the Citadel but knew that it was unlikely considering that the Citadel had millions of residents and he could be anywhere in the galaxy. 

She had never told anyone about meeting him. In her report, she’d merely stated that an unidentified turian had pursued her and she’d lost him in the base. She’d stated that she had been low on rations and went into the mess hall to find food and been trapped when it was shelled. The shelling, she’d learned, had been done by the Alliance. They’d built a new facility and hadn’t wanted to leave anything behind for the turians to use. They hadn’t expected anyone to be there. As she’d expected, he was a secret she would take to her grave. 

She pushed back from the railing and gave it a tap as a flanged voice behind her said formally, “Commander Shepard.” 

She froze. She knew that voice. She’d heard it calling her name in the throes of lust and in desperation. She wasn’t imagining it. It was unmistakable. She turned slowly to find the red turian from the bar standing in front of her. Physically, he hadn’t changed much, though his eyes were harder. His carriage and mannerisms, though, told her that this wasn’t the same person she’d known before. He was harder, more confident, tempered by time and experience. And he bore a Spectre flash on his armored shoulder. He’d done it. She felt her mouth tip up in a crooked smile as she said, “Agent Kryik.” 

“You remember me,” he said. 

“You were…kind of unforgettable,” she replied. 

“So were you,” he said as his eyes traveled over her. “You look good, Shepard.” 

“So do you,” she said. “I see you became a Spectre.” 

“I see you got your starship,” he said, gesturing to the _Normandy_ behind her. 

She shrugged. “Not mine, exactly. I’m just the XO. But I’m getting there. The next one will be mine. I am finally going to the Citadel. And I’m drinking buddies with an asari and a salarian. Now I just need to make a difference.” 

“You already have,” he said solemnly. Then his stance changed and he was her Nihlus again. “Is there somewhere we could go to, ah, talk more privately?” 

“My barracks are just a few blocks away,” she said. “It’s still mine for another day. I ship out tomorrow.” 

“I know,” he said, falling into step beside her as she began to walk the familiar path back to her quarters. “That’s part of what I want to talk to you about. I’ve been assigned to oversee the _Normandy_ ’s shakedown run. I wanted to make sure it wouldn’t be a problem.” 

“Why would it be a problem?” she asked. 

He gave her a sideways glance and said, “The last time I saw you, you pointed a gun at me.” 

“Reflex,” she said. “I lowered it as soon as it registered that it was you.” 

“Well, then, the last time I saw you, I was trying to take you prisoner,” he said. “And you were threatening to kill yourself if I did.” 

“That did happen,” she agreed. “But you let me go.” 

“So did you,” he said as they reached her room and she passed her omni-tool over the lock. “So what now?” 

He followed her in and she turned to face him with her arms crossed over her chest and her weight rocked back onto her heel. “I’d say that’s at least partially up to you,” she said. “What do you want, Nihlus?” 

“You,” he answered instantly in a low growl. 

“Thank god,” she said as relief flooded through her. 

He crossed the room in two strides and pulled her into his arms. She stood on tiptoe and pulled his head down to meet his lips with hers. Six years of longing shot through her veins and made her hands fumble on the seals of his unfamiliar armor. He popped them open without pulling away from her and she went to work on her own clothing. When they were both stripped down, he lifted her and carried her to the bed. 

This time, there was no slow exploration or leisurely foreplay. He was just as eager as she was and he took only a moment to dip his fingers with sheathed talons into her to prepare her. Turian lubrication proved to have its uses as he lined himself up with her entrance and pushed into her in a single long stroke. She felt his plates meet her ass as he seated himself inside of her but when she would have moved, he dropped his forehead to hers and whispered, “I have missed you, Shepard. I never forgot you.” 

“I missed you, too,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Our time together was far too short.” 

He kissed her and said, “I’ve been told to expect to be out for at least six months with an option to remain for two years.” 

“That might be enough time,” she said. 

“I don’t know that there will ever be enough time,” he said. “I don’t know how it happened but I am…bound to you in a way I can’t explain.” 

“You don’t have to,” she said. 

He began to move within her, drawing strangled cries from them as they relearned each other’s bodies and discovered new things. He didn’t leave her bed until it was time to prepare to report to the ship and even then, did so reluctantly, stating that it would probably be wise for them to keep their acquaintance under wraps. They’d spent the time they weren’t coming together catching up and she knew that he had similarly not mentioned her to his command. He’d said that turians would prevaricate and he’d done so with surprising alacrity when questioned about his whereabouts. He told her that his command hadn’t known that she was there. She agreed with his plan and when they boarded the _Normandy_ separately, she made sure to question Anderson about the Spectre’s presence on a shakedown run. 

The mission gave them time to do something they hadn’t been able to do before: get to know each other in a more organic way. They’d gone about their relationship backwards with sex and emotion coming before knowledge and they began to correct that. They still stole moments together when they could but most of their time was spent learning about each other. 

She made a show of questioning why he was there every time she turned around and Anderson’s reaction was the first clue she got that there was another reason for Nihlus’ presence. When she questioned Nihlus, he gave her an enigmatic smile and told her that she would see. It wasn’t until they were approaching Eden Prime and she found him alone in the briefing room that he drew her into his arms and admitted that she was right. They parted quickly when Anderson entered and she listened in stunned silence as Nihlus told her that he’d put her name forward for Spectre candidacy and would be evaluating her himself. She saved her retort about evaluations for later and simply asked him his reason. She didn’t want to be considered just because of who she was to him. 

He assured her that it wasn’t and said, “You have shown a remarkable dedication to cooperation among the various races. You don’t judge a person on their species but on their character. Your actions during the war between our species set you apart and your willingness to move beyond that and work with my people is commendable. Your desire for justice extends to the galaxy as a whole rather than your species alone. You have more than earned this on your own merit, Commander.” 

Their conversation was interrupted by incoming vid feed of a massive alien ship landing on the planet to which they were headed. She resolved to talk about it later and went to gear up. He came up to her as she was doing so and said quietly, “I don’t like this situation, Shepard. It doesn’t feel right. Be careful.” 

“You aren’t coming with us?” she asked. 

“I work better alone,” he answered. “I’ll scout ahead and feed you reports.” 

“No,” she said, looking back over at the vid screen. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” She was suddenly and inexplicably convinced that if he went alone, she would never see him again. “We go together. Please, Nihlus. Whatever this is, we find out together.” 

“You will be safer if I—” he began. 

She cut him off. “No. We’ll both be safer at each other’s backs. My team is green as grass. Jenkins has never seen combat. I don’t know Alenko. I know you. I know how you fight. Together, we can handle this. If you go on alone, you have no backup and I’m left with a team I don’t know can handle this. Please reconsider, Nihlus. I’m not trying to undermine you our first time out but I’ve got a bad feeling about this. I just found you again. I don’t want to lose you.” 

“I’ve been working on my own for a long time…” he started to say and then looked over at Jenkins who was bouncing excitedly. “No. You’re right. We’ll go together. That kid’s going to get himself killed.” 

“Thank you,” she whispered and, after a glance around to make sure they weren’t being observed, rose onto tiptoe to kiss his mandible. “Thank you,” she said again. 

Her instincts proved to be right when he saw his former commander and mentor and went ahead to greet the other turian. He motioned for Shepard and her team to remain behind as Saren Arterius was known for his hatred of humans and his recommendation of her was apparently a point of contention between them. That may have explained why something about him set her teeth on edge but she didn’t overthink it. She simply watched him closely. There was no reason for him to be here. Nihlus said he worked alone and he hadn’t expected to see him. 

The distress signal had come from a human team and had gone out on Alliance channels. They hadn’t been here that long and they’d been the closest ship in the vicinity when they’d gotten the signal. Arterius wouldn’t have had time to get here after them and they had seen no other vessels. Joker would have let them know if another one had arrived after them. That meant he had to have been here before. There was no reason for a turian Spectre to be on a human colony for a mission that was already being overseen by another turian Spectre. Her eyes narrowed on the artificial arm and the tubes and wires covering his body. Something wasn’t right here. 

She was standing to get Nihlus’ attention when he turned to look at the alien ship that was making her teeth feel like she’d bitten down on aluminum and Saren raised his pistol. She charged without hesitation and felt the bullet slam into her shoulder as she reformed and shoved Nihlus out of the way. She heard the crack of a rifle and looked over to see Williams with her rifle lifted to her shoulder. Shepard threw a barrier up around herself and Nihlus and rolled with her shotgun aimed at the other turian’s head. 

“What the hell?” Nihlus shouted. “Shepard, what do you think you’re doing?” 

“He tried to kill you!” she shouted back. “He was going to shoot you in the back of the head!” 

“That’s crazy!” Nihlus insisted. “Shepard, he’s my best friend. He’s my _mentor_.” 

“We all saw it,” Alenko called out. 

“Nihlus,” Saren said in a chiding voice. “Are you truly going to listen to the word of these humans? What reason would I have to harm you?” 

“I’m sorry, Saren,” Nihlus said, trying to maneuver himself out from under Shepard. She settled more fully on top of him and kept her shotgun trained on Saren. “I don’t know what’s gotten into her.” 

“She is human,” Saren said as if that explained everything. “I tried to tell you that she was not Spectre material. I do not understand why you were drawn to her in the first place. You always have been far too fond of her.” 

“Nihlus, listen to me,” Shepard said urgently. “How did the Council know to send him here? We only just got the signal a few minutes before we landed and there was no one else in the vicinity. Joker or Anderson would have notified us if another ship had come in. He was already here when the attack happened. Look around. Do you see another ship at the spaceport? The only other ship here is that crazy glowing squid thing. Hell, just look at him! He looks half geth! The arm, Nihlus. Look at his arm. It’s the exact same as the geth we’ve been fighting.” 

Beneath her, Nihlus tensed. From the corner of her eye, she saw him look Saren up and down consideringly. His voice was cold when he said, “Saren, do you have an explanation for this?” She moved so that he could stand and was gratified to see him raise his assault rifle. 

“You think I am responsible for this?” Saren asked, sounding offended. “What reason could I possibly have for allying myself with the geth and bringing them beyond the Veil? They are a threat.” 

“You’re prevaricating,” she said. “Stop talking around the issue and answer the question.” 

Saren’s cybernetic blue eyes narrowed on her and he snarled, “Filthy human. You will learn your place!” He raised his pistol again and there was another crack as Williams fired. The pistol fell from his damaged hand and he turned and bolted. 

“Shit!” Nihlus shouted. “Are you all right, Shepard?” 

“I’m fine,” she said. “Let’s go.” 

They chased Saren through the spaceport but lost time disarming the bombs he’d set and fighting the army of geth and husk-like creatures he’d placed in their path. By the time they reached the beacon, Saren was nowhere to be found and the alien ship was taking off. Nihlus cursed and ran a hand over his slightly uneven fringe. She went to him and put a hand on his arm but before she could say anything, she saw Alenko approaching the beacon. She shouted and ran to him as the beacon began to glow. She threw him aside but was caught up in it and her mind was bombarded by discordant screaming images of destruction and chaos and then everything went dark. 

She woke in the med bay with Dr. Chakwas, Anderson, Nihlus, and Kaidan standing over her. Her head was pounding and when she closed her eyes, she could see the images flashing behind them. With a groan, she put her head in her hands and tried to shove the images down so that she could debrief Anderson. It was far too long before her captain was satisfied and she was alone with Nihlus once more. 

He took her to his quarters and drew her into his arms. “Are you all right?” he asked. 

“I’m okay,” she said. “What about you? That couldn’t have been easy down there.” 

He sighed and placed his forehead against hers. “You saved my life, Shepard. Again. If I had been alone…I never would have hesitated to turn my back on him. It didn’t occur to me to question his presence. You saw what I couldn’t. He would have shot me in the back. You took the bullet meant for me.” 

“It wasn’t exactly planned,” she said. “I just knew I had to get you out of the way and I was afraid that charging him wouldn’t be enough.” 

“On a professional note, I’m definitely recommending you for Spectre training,” he said. “The fact that you saw that and put it together, your skill in the field, your quick thinking…you deserve this, Shepard. On a personal note, I think the only thing I can say is that no one else could have convinced me to suspect him. I’m sorry I doubted you even for a moment.” 

She smiled up at him and cupped his mandible in a hand. “Don’t feel too badly about it. I would have had a hard time believing you about Anderson if the situation had been reversed. And, for the record, two years isn’t going to be enough.” 

“I don’t think forever will be enough,” he said. “I love you, Shepard.” 

“I love you, too, Nihlus,” she said. “So, what now?” 

“Now we go after him, find out what he’s doing and why. And we do it together,” he answered.


End file.
